Lmao! When I saw this earlier, I was going to say that I'd thought you were a guy, and then I realized that might be offensive, so I chose to say nothing at all. Good to hear that you 'are' a guy and that it was someone 'else' who confused your gender! Hehe.
Is anyone else still experiencing a problem with frequent repeats? I just spent an hour in front of the TV hitting the randomizer button and seemed to be recycling through the same 25 or so blogs with the very occasional "new" site thrown in. With over a thousand to choose from, this didn't seem quite right.
I know from reading this thread that folks need to put their blog URL in their profile in order to be included in the randomizer, but since I didn't see a place to include that in the Ning profile, I assume Bryce meant it has to be included in the NaBloPoMo profile, but it's a required field in the profile so...everyone should be in there already, right? Or am I missing something?
Yes, I "randomly" get the same half dozen blogs over and over with a few new ones in between. I'm thinking that filling out the profile was not required when we signed up but still, out of 2000 or so bloggers, even a few hundred in the randomizer should give better results.
BTW, Bryce, I do appreciate your efforts in this - it's very nice that you're trying to get the thing going :-)
Oh thank goodness other people are experiencing this, too, after more than just 10 or 20 test click-throughs. I think the others were beginning to think I was crazy and I was wondering why I was being singled out by the randomizer, too! I understand that people need to list their blogs, but when it's the 'same' handful of blogs over and over again with a few random ones mixed in, I can't help but wonder what's up with it. :(
On the one hand, I've noticed the same tendency for the Randomiser to fixate on half-a-dozen blogs after 10-20 clicks. On the other hand, if you close the Randomiser completely and then re-open it, you get a different half-dozen blogs. So maybe that's a good workaround.
I've been noticing a higher volume of spam sites in the randomizer this year. I know it's something that probably can't be fixed the way things are now, but something to think about for next year, I guess.
Since the Randomizer takes its links from the Member pages, it's strange that spam would show up -- sometimes when people delete their Blogspot blogs they get taken over (amazingly quickly) by spam sites, and I know a few people have already dropped out. I will try to take a day and go through the member links and see if I run into any fake sites, if anyone thinks of it while they're clicking, send me an e-mail [nablopomo[at]gmail[dot]com] with the offending URL and I'll take care of it.
No, it never occurred to me that NaBlo would stretch beyond a circle of people who just liked to blog, but I'm naive like that, I suppose. Plus that would mean I'd have to vet every single member as they registered to keep out people who don't blog out of sheer love. Ugh. Another issue rears its head.
I actually started a forum thread for listing spam, but I guess people weren't into it because no one posted. Maybe we should try again now that people are more annoyed by it.
How it was explained in another thread was that Ning can only pull a certain amount of blogs out at a time and those get randomized....otherwise, it'd be a huge overload for it to try to go through the hundreds of blogs each and every time we clicked the button (instead of only 50 or so). If you close the randomizer and go to it again, you should get a different set of blogs that are randomized.
That being said, I've lost all interest in the randomizer this year because of it. Someone else set up a randomizer outside Ning through the Blog Directory, but again, everyone has to sign up there to add their blog and it's still a select number of blogs for this reason. (Check the other thread for details on it)
I still use last year's randomizer from time to time, lol (even since this year's has started). I wish this year's was more impressive, but oh well.
I'd understand that maybe only 50 sites get pulled every time you run Randomizer, and that you just cycle through those until you restart Randomizer. But every time I select Randomizer, day after day, the new subset of blogs chosen by Randomizer still seems to include about half of the blogs through which I had previously cycled. Given the huge number of members, that just seems statistically impossible. Its as if only a limited subset of the Blogroll is eligible.
Boy I hate to add on to this, as I haven't got much new to say...
But according to my sitemeter, I haven't had one visit from the randomizer, and I've been signed on since the beginning. In both places. And I did check to make sure my site was listed (and has been throughout the hiccups in the procedure) - so I guess I'm from a non-pulling section?
NaBloPoMo is fun, really, either way. I love it. I'm just sorry that something that I know Eden has been pulling her hair out over just isn't working.
I wonder if it's possible to set up the Randomizer with the blogroll as a database, instead of Ning. I know that people have put a lot of effort into the Randomizer, and it's a pity to see so many users being frustrated with it.
I would also love a "report this blog" function to tag spam and sites that are slacking on their updates.
Wait . . . It DOESN'T pull from the NaBloPoMo Blogroll? That might be the problem. I went to my Ning profile settings, and I can't find any place in which to insert a website. The only place I've been able to insert my blog website is in the NaBloPoMo profile. The only settings are for a picture, an email address, and some personal info. If there is a special place elsewhere in Ning (but outside of NaBloPoMo) where the blog website needs to be entered, can someone let me know how to get there?
